Marisacat

hmmm… No. 28 November 2006

This is so bad I don’t know where to begin. Above all else, this has nothing to do with “Kramer” / Richards inexcusable behavior and language (and his frankly ridiculous and largely inappropriate and useless post event appearances), it really does not.

However it is anti-democratic… for one thing censorship is NOT, NEVER the answer. And I am sorry to say, Jesse and Maxine are acting like fools. Upchuck the stupid pills… Now.

Rev. Jesse Jackson will meet with TV and film executives to discuss banning the use of derogatory expressions in the entertainment industry. “We want to give our ancestors a Christmas present,” he said. Asked about free-speech issues, Jackson said the word is “unprotected.”

The Rev. Jesse Jackson and others said they will meet with TV networks, film companies and musicians to discuss the “n-word.” They also sought an effort by the public to stop using the term. “We want to give our ancestors a Christmas present,” Jackson said at a news conference. “Dignity over degradation.” Jackson also asked the public to not buy a DVD box set of the seventh season of the TV show “Seinfeld” that was released last week.

“This is not simply about whether or not the black community forgives or forgets, this is about understanding that this is pervasive, that this happens in all of our institutions, one way or the other,” U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-California, said. [snip]

What do they intend to do about Blacks who use language they deem worthy of censorship? Shall we divide permitted language by skin color?

Oh, and this too: shall we go back and kill Lenny? Try him – and the words – again?

This will mean a couple of things — one, the site will become more professional, with paid bloggers helping maintain site content, and two, it will become a true “group” blog.

I did not get to the thread. And a quick look at the diary column showed there is already politiking, campaigning for the jobs… Cannot read everything and, LOL, I must preserve what little sanity is left to me in the America on offer… of which Kos and his whacks are part of the tired passion play.

Oh yes, new staff must of course join the movement… As I said, laugh at it… 😉

Almost forgot the biggest horselaugh! .. don’t miss this so important job requirement… it has so been on view at DKos, Yes? (obvioiusly emphasis is mine)

While we all lose our tempers at times, being generally level-headed is important.

They have to be humble. (This is not a good gig for people with big egos. Believing the hype is dangerous.)

I won’t pay any heed to physical attributes (sex, race, etc). In the blog world, the writing — and how it fits in my vision for the site — is everything. They have to understand that to the outside world, they speak editorially for the site, and that’s a heavy burden.

Escobar is back and it is hard to pick an excerpt, here is the concluding segment:

The fall of the Green ZoneEveryone is guilty in the ongoing Iraq tragedy. The US-trained new Iraqi army is infiltrated by militias, by death squads and even by al-Qaeda in Iraq. The SCIRI, Da’wa and the Kurds are only worried about their own interests, not the interests of Iraq as a nation. And the US – always hiding under the dubious mantra of “Iraqi democracy” – totally evades its responsibility in provoking the appalling chaos in the first place.

Militia hell will remain impervious to any summit. Shi’ite clerical leader Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani may call for restraint. But Sistani does not control the Shi’ite proletarian masses anymore, Muqtada does. The Americans – attacked at least 180 times a day, every day – will keep “controlling” only one piece of real estate in the whole of Mesopotamia (although an extremely valuable one): the Green Zone.

The ISG may recommend more summits and more covert contacts with the Sunni Arab resistance. Ahmadinejad, Talabani and Assad may even meet again. But Baghdad sources close to the resistance in the Sunni belt have told Asia Times Online of another coup in the making – and that goes way beyond the removal of the Maliki government.

Secular former Ba’athists and Saddam’s fighters congregated in the Army of Mohammed – the paramilitary wing of the Awda Party – are already in control of the Syrian border (and not Salafi-jihadis of the al-Qaeda kind).

The next big step for the Sunni Arab resistance – according to sheikhs of the powerful Shammar Sunni tribe – would be to take out the Badr Organization, holed up in the Ministry of the Interior, and the two most murderous factions of the Mehdi Army. That would mean an Iraqi nationalist purge of the hated “Iranians”. And that implies an all-out attack on the Green Zone.

The return of the Ba’athists and the fall of the Green Zone: now that’s a prime-time double bill to knock ’em dead.

*********************************************************************

UPDATE, 5:20 pm

Patrick Cockburn has up a piece on Iraq. A long, sad, unsurprising read. Really, we, both America and the UK, we are led by madmen. Insane killers.

[O]f course Bush and Blair argue that there is no occupation. In June 2004 sovereignty was supposedly handed back to Iraq. “Let Freedom Reign,” wrote Mr Bush on the piece of paper informing him of the carefully choreographed return of power to an Iraqi government at a ceremony in the heart of the Green Zone. But the reality of power remained firmly with the US and Britain. The Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki said this month that he could not move a company of soldiers without seeking permission of the Coalition (the US and Britain). Officials in Mosul confirmed to me that they could not carry out a military operation without the agreement of US forces.

There is a hidden history to the occupation of Iraq which helps explain why it has proved such a disaster. In 1991 after the first Gulf war a crucial reason why President George Bush senior did not push on to Baghdad was that he feared that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein would be followed by elections that would be won in turn by Shia religious parties sympathetic to Iran. No worse outcome of the war could be imagined in Washington. After the capture of Baghdad in 2003 the US faced the same dilemma. Many of the contortions of US policy in Iraq since then have been a covert attempt to avoid or dilute the domination of Iraq’s Shia majority. [snip]

Oddly, I have on Apocalypse Now, the luncheon scene as Sheen gets his order to “terminate Kurtz’s command” with “extreme sanction”, as I hear of the 5 dead children… Just a snippet that goes by on the cables.

BAGHDAD, Nov. 28 — American troops killed five girls, including at least one baby, and what the military described as either a boy or a man, when the troops attacked a house Tuesday in volatile Anbar Province after they suspected insurgents of firing at them from the roof of the house.

Stop it, end it now, pull back to bases. We have all become Col Kurtz. Again.

The military said the Americans returned fire with machine guns and small arms and rounds from the main gun of one or more tanks. After the firefight, the Americans discovered the six dead Iraqis in the house.

Finally, down the article:

American troops in Anbar are fighting a holding action, unable to make any real headway against the insurgency while facing a mostly hostile civilian population. The pressures have already led to prominent incidents of civilian deaths — one unit of Marines is being investigated for whether it wrongfully killed 24 unarmed civilians in the town of Haditha last year.

Just today, Bush said what he has said for years, that we are going to win.

[H]e says many of the hundreds of troops he has interviewed at post-deployment sites are addicted to medications given to them in the field, such as painkillers and sleeping pills. But they are not getting the therapy that normally goes with such medications, Robinson said.

Adam Reuter, a 23-year-old former Army specialist, said that after he was tossed out of a Humvee in an accident in Iraq, a medic handed him a plastic bag filled with pills and gave him no instructions.

The bag contained four kinds of painkillers, an anti-inflammatory drug and a muscle relaxant, said Reuter, an Atlanta native who served with the 3rd Squadron of the 3rd Armored Company from May 2003 until February 2004. He said he went back for more and developed a dependency that he is still trying to shake.

Military personnel said they used banned substances as a way to mentally escape the violence around them. Drugs ranging from marijuana to prescription anti-depressants are easily accessible in Iraq, according to interviews with more than a dozen soldiers who served there.

John Crawford, a 28-year-old former Florida National Guardsman with the Army’s 101st Airborne Division, said soldiers in his unit drank alcohol, some took steroids, “pretty much everyone took Valium,” and “some did all three.”

Crawford said he bought 200 to 300 Valium pills on the street in Baghdad for $2 as a way to get some sleep between patrols. After eight months, he built up a tolerance and was taking seven or eight at a time.

The extent of alcohol and drug abuse among combat veterans is difficult to quantify. The Pentagon declined to release the results of announced drug tests specifically for Iraq. The tests are usually done just once a year. [snip]

How much Afghani product, refined in Turkey, smuggled and trucked across the “peaceful” Northern iraq, the Kurdish area, is being consumed by the US military?

Right, you know this will be good, or bad, depending on your view from the parapet.

What it is is tabloid work… and more of the old extortion games the Blahgs run. I am, however, glad that I clicked thru to Tom Watson’s post… so I could read this choice tid bitty:

I hope Peter Daou is reading this, because his boss may well have to face this kind of sexist attack beginning next year. It’s so bad, so poorly executed, that it really does appear to be a clumsy Republican efforts to pollute a top Democratic blog. These posts are permanent, folks. They give aid and comfort to the other side. They make our side look surly, sexist, hypocritical.

To put is another way: are you stupid? Or just insane?

And if you read his opening grafs (full of political love and nice words for the tabloids who run the extortion games), wellll… I have to wonder. The Pups in the Puddle have been on display for a good year now. And they like the ta$te of political games. Ye$$iree, they surely do.

Oh, if PD does not know what he and she will be dealing with in the Blahgs… then he is not the ad man I consider him to be. Nor would he be the creator of blog storms that he considers himself to be…

May I say, Good Luck to all. Surely the best man – the politician most willing and able to spread cash to the Blahgs – will win.

And last, if you lick the boots of, and suck up to, Reid, you are not “Left”. Maybe some tired Wilsonian Liberal. The Blahgs appear most tightly aligned to Reid.

Eww.

********************************************************************

UPDATE, 7:53 pm Wednesday…

JJB helpfully linked to the diary of Big Drahma Tent… with some of the comments also in the thread below. But I landed on this:

BINGO, big time would be my comment… and BRAVA to Miss Devore who got it said:

… and you’re the only one who doesn’t see that. Your post alone has insulted me and every other woman who values BTD or any other man who you may objectify as an “alpha male.” And your “ultimate value” … well I’ll leave it at that.

What’s between the two of you personally doesn’t belong on this site. But if what you say is true, you’re doing a pretty damned good job catching up with him. I’ve seen you hurt people who did nothing whatsoever to harm you or to insult you. If you had one tenth the ability to see the results of your own actions you wouldn’t be so quick to slam BTD or anyone else.

I read the diary you wrote about him that rightfully got deleted. It had no business at this site. You’re speaking about things that happened a long time ago. But the hurt you’re causing is in the present.

And it’s not about BTD being a man, and I find that objectification by both you and hrh to be offensive.

Like this:

Related

I don’t think I’ve ever read anything quite as hilarious as the back-slapping, ass-kissing and outright fellating going on over at DKO$. I couldn’t make up anything that funny. Not in a dozen lifetimes.

In the blog world, the writing — and how it fits in my vision for the site — is everything. They have to understand that to the outside world, they speak editorially for the site, and that’s a heavy burden.

* 1. The Democratic Party is the primary vessel of the progressive coalition. It is impossible to enact real change without an electoral apparatus within your movement. In a two-party system, it is thus necessary to adopt one of the two parties as the electoral vessel of your coalition.

* 2. Within the coalition, intra-party democracy must always be adhered to. All party nominees must be determined by an elective primary open to all registered members of the party in the relevant district. The winner of the primary must always be supported by all members of the party apparatus, and all rank and file members should vote for the nominee (especially those who voted in the primary).

* 3. Party elections should be fair and open to all members of the party, and no one should ever be forced or muscled off of a ballot for a party office or nomination for public office.

* 4. There are no litmus tests to join the coalition. No one has to read or sign off on any document stating support for a particular policy. If someone wants to join, registering as a Democrat should be the only requirement.

* 5. Under no circumstances should any member of the party apparatus support any member of any opposing coalition, (in other words, any other political party).

* 6. Outside of issues relating to corruption, Democrats must never criticize each other in the same manner that Republicans criticize Democrats. [So war, abortion, flat taxes are off the table]

* 7. No Democrat should ever publicly call any Democrat unelectable, or publicly rank candidates based on perceived electability.

* 8. Don’t expect the party to change on it’s own. Be prepared and willing to change it yourself.

While we all lose our tempers at times, being generally level-headed is important.

They have to be humble. (This is not a good gig for people with big egos. Believing the hype is dangerous.)

Has anyone sent that message on to Big Tent Democrat?

Don’t be ridiculous (0+ / 9-)

Be realistic pelase, Ford is African American.

He wil cost us votes.

by Big Tent Democrat on Fri Nov 10, 2006 at 02:04:04 PM EST

You are an idiot (0+ / 3-)

Just an unbelievable idiot.

I am a racist is your theory.

I believe you should be donuted by anyone with decency./

by Big Tent Democrat on Fri Nov 10, 2006 at 02:58:18 PM EST

You are the racist (0+ / 3-)

as you do not think that ad was racist.

I made no racist comments.

You are an intolerant idiot an ratings abuser.

You should be trollrated to oblvicion.

by Big Tent Democrat on Fri Nov 10, 2006 at 02:59:42 PM EST

You ducking lying asshole (0+ / 7-)

How dare you call me a racist.

You fuckhead. I will remember that you are religious freak idiot.

More at TalkLeft

by Big Tent Democrat on Fri Nov 10, 2006 at 03:04:49 PM EST

Racist? (0+ / 4-)

You fucker are out of your fucking mind.

Just a fucking joke.

Auto ban?

Fuck off you stupid idiots.

by Big Tent Democrat on Fri Nov 10, 2006 at 03:05:40 PM EST

Those are his hidden comments, of which there are too few. Just check out this exchange from earlier today:

Armando, you CREATED this culture of insult (0 / 0)

along with a few other seminal (heh!) Kossacks. You bear full responsibility for any ugliness expressed in the discourse here.

You allow your friends to indulge themselves in the worst sort of insult and personal attacks, yet you suddenly become a prim-and-proper handwringing twit when people you disapprove of talk back to you.

Tough shit.

Look, you caused a huge ruckus several months ago when you were going through some personal problems – you had the insane fucking nerve to accuse me of having a “posse” that was intent on undermining this site. You have a lot to apologize for and a lot to make right. Be an honest man, straighten out the problems you caused, and quit the bullshit.

by hrh on Wed Nov 29, 2006 at 07:16:54 AM EST

A Gilas Girl (2+ / 0-)

pegged you.

There is little to add after that.

by Big Tent Democrat on Wed Nov 29, 2006 at 09:49:45 AM EST

I had her number a long time ago (0 / 0)

People like her are the reason I chose not to go to grad school.

by hrh on Wed Nov 29, 2006 at 02:26:21 PM EST

Ha! (0 / 0)
So AGG is an Alpha Male Ass Kisser too now?!?!?!?!?!

You have sooooo jumped the shark.

Wow. Just wow.

I think even peeder will dump you now.

by Big Tent Democrat on Wed Nov 29, 2006 at 02:29:33 PM EST

pomo academia (0 / 0)

gives me a rash. I argued with AGG long before I ever argued with you, babe.

by hrh on Wed Nov 29, 2006 at 02:32:00 PM EST

Same as it ever was, except he seems to have less willing Armandildos to help him out these days. Maybe they’ve gotten a life, maybe even they’ve seen through him, maybe he’s turned on all of them.

Just read that idiotic post by BooMan. So Jim Webb may never represent his values the way Paul Tsongas does, huh? Well, Robert Novak tried to push Tsongas’ presidential candidacy as much as he could, which should tell you all you need to know about BM’s alleged progressivism.

As for the Cockburn piece, it’s yet one more confirmation that unless we get our troops out of Iraq fast, we’re going to suffer a defeat very much like the one we suffered in the Phillippines in the early days of WWII. Our troops won’t have to surrender en masse, but the fighting retreat to Kuwait will be an extraordinarily bloody affair in which the fatality total for the entire war may be doubled in a matter of a few weeks.

The first meeting in a scheduled two-day summit between President Bush and Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki of Iraq was canceled at the last minute today, against the backdrop of threats by a radical Shiite cleric to boycott the Maliki government and the disclosure of a classified White House memo that was highly critical of Mr. Maliki.

Mr. Bush and Mr. Maliki still intend to have breakfast together here Thursday morning, and to hold a much-anticipated press conference afterward.

But a joint session planned for this evening with their Jordanian host, King Abdullah II, was abruptly called off while Mr. Bush was in the air, flying to Amman from Riga, Latvia.

Mr. Bush’s counselor, Dan Bartlett, told reporters traveling aboard Air Force One that there was no need for the three-way session, since Mr. Maliki and King Abdullah had already met earlier in the day and Mr. Bush and King Abdullah were planning to have a separate, private dinner together later in the evening.

Mr. Bartlett said the cancellation had nothing to do with disclosure of the classified memo, reported in today’s issue of The New York Times. “No one should read too much into this, except for the fact that they had a good meeting,” Mr. Bartlett said, referring to Mr. Maliki and the king.

Meanwhile in Baghdad, lawmakers and cabinet members loyal to the anti-American cleric Moktada al-Sadr followed through today on a previous threat to boycott the government if Mr. Maliki went to Amman to meet with Mr. Bush. They said in a statement today that they were suspending their participation in both the parliament and the cabinet.

The catastrophe is fast approaching, and BushCo. is completely oblivious.

How exactly does Bowers expect you to go about changing the Dem Party (#8) if you never criticise Dems on the issues (#6)? Mad.

marisacat: He should add a 9th. Party members are commanded to vote the party ticket. And boot lick the BlahgSnots. But that’s actually in #2 (D. Throat highlighted it). Well, not actual boot licking. But the other part.

Who are these people?

Also, didn’t they used to get a pretty even split between women and men on those polls? So not just a pattern, but a trend.

that WAS right gong he did command strict adherence to the party ticket. And at least when I read the thread (early on, around 20 comments) they were falling in line, pretty much!

And that, #2, always sticks in my craw. One – you own your vote. And Two – I hve never diverged. LOL I just skip the Dems I will not vote for… never a Republican. Ever. Not that it matters, now or ever… 😉

I’d be screaming with laughter, if McCain (who reportedly DID consider a split ticket in ’00 to the point of discussion with possibles) Lieberman and Bloomberg (who has been a public asshole over the horrific cop shooting) were not out and out dangerous.

Not to nitpick madman (well actually, it is nitpicking, but since I’m a monkey’s nephew, WTF, its in my genes), Not all herd animals are stupid. I have great respect for the intelligence of the horse (smart fuckers) but not so much for cows (although the penchant of psilocybe cubenisis to grow on the dung of Bos indica, the brahma type of rumniant, raises the value of bovines in my estimation, although this does nothing to change my assesment of their intelligence).

I’m not sure what I’m trying to get at here, but to riff off of Bob Marley; You can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time…and I have to agree only stupid people pay any attention to Farm Woman’s ex-beau’s (or is it still an ongoing affair?)

can any more clowns possibly come out of that car? i can’t even keep up with them all, multiple circus rings full of clowns. if this keeps up, marisa, you might want to think about adding peanuts to the bill of fare. i’ve spent time already reading the thread at Tom Watson’s and haven’t had a moment to glance at kos and his whacks, :::best description yet!:::: center ring.

poor tom. he seems to have discovered that DogFuddle truly is the mommy dearest of blogs, all the front-paging joans were over there chasing him around, virtual coat hangers in hand, discipline in mind. a good thread though. lots of pushback against FUDL on the internets too, i see posts up at many of the women’s sites with none i’ve read registering approval.

Sexism is second nature to so many on the right, which is why those on the left have to ensure that their antennae are acutely tuned to the misogynistic jibes thrown at Nancy Pelosi from everyone from Maureen Dowd to Dennis Miller. As Tom Watson, provoked by this outburst of projectile vomiting in Firedoglake, points out, such rhetorical rot will only end up eating into our own faces.

Apparently there are threads at Feministe and elsewhere (I cannot keep up). Thanks, I had missed that Wolcott commented… I have not read him in months.. Dew Drop In time… 😉

To me, it is not the words, it is the unravelling hatred being off loaded and USING Tauscher as an excuse…. Frankly imo the BBB give a flying hoo hoo, really. Pachacutec also USED the Tauscher post/ thread to really lickspittle love Miller from an adjacent district to Tauscher… who is a mixed bag to be frank. But they hung crosses of gold and diamonds off him. Bullshit. He and Kennedy sold out on NCLB… and the stories of how the WH soft soaped them was hilarious and reported at the time. Also according to Cockburn at Counterpunch, Miller helped Rahm push Filson in an effort to dislodge Mcnerney in the primary.

so take the wings off Miller.

It is an excercise in bullying and EXTORTION.

The Tauscher post is so over the top that I have to think it is making the rounds in DC and CA, heavily.

oh.. bay… not sure how far you made it in the thread at Tom Watson… but apparently he is involved with DMI. Drum Major Institute. Another tired useless Dem hang out. Andy Young on the board kind of place… K v d Heuvel and Freddie Ferrer (I mean he even LOOKS like a hack).

SOmeone credited TW with being the originator of the DMI blog. Who knew.

IIRC it is DMI that has lauded and awarded Kos… and hmmm also Greenwald (I am not a big fAN)

Shakespeare’s Sister has a post up on it too. And there are two posts at feminste, one by ZuZu who really took it to the joans in Tom’s thread and also one by pliny. Amanda also mentions the event and im seeing links to these posts from other blogs via technorati.

Havent had a chance to even read the site lately, or anything else. My mini mac’s hard drive fucking died on me… after only a year. Im borrowing a computer (boyfriend’s, while he’s out) but it is virtually impossible to use it most of the time because he is on it most of the time – it is his work. And it is very awkward for me, negotiating an entirely different (Windows) set up. Takes me longer, getting to know it…

Aside from the internal Internets stuff I havent had a chance to look at – FDL, Kos topics currently chewed on here – wanted to weigh in with Jimmy Carter.

Bless you, fucking bless you, Jimmy Carter.

I assume everyone here is aware that he is out on solo flight as a Democrat with stature, (virtually any Democrat who holds or has held public office) daring to point the finger at Israeli wrongs in the I/P Conflict, in his book Palestine, Peace Not Appartheid. I dont know how good the book is in terms of overall content and writing, but I know what his main message is and god, is it about time. A refreshing blast of sharp, fresh air, cutting thru that wall of taboo and propaganda.

Today Democracy Now devoted a full segment to a talk he gave at Borders. From it, I see our much vaunted leftists, Pelosi and Conyers, were quick to spin Dem distance from Carter out of the gobs of cotton candy, or artificial spun-sugar love for Israel, that fills the toxic abyss that is our deafening national silence, total lack of meaningful discussion, regarding the I/P CRISIS. Or conflict. Or Israeli-American joint venture in ME colonialism. (Also good segment from a few days ago on the topic, with kudos given to Carter by Ali … Electronic Intifada, and Colombia’s Edward Said Org chair, a professor, name escapes…)

I missed the Larry King interview on CNN on Mon night, but caught Carter interviewed by Woodruff 2 nights ago on News Hour… God, she was smarmy, her mouth actually contorted into a kind of nightmarish grimace-smile, melting into her surgically strained face, as he countered her CW (PRO Israeli govt, dull witted American media) questioning. He never wavered, he delivered. Apartheid, worse than in S Africa, even. Horrendous is the adjective he used to describe the treatment by the Israelis of the Palestinians. The kidnapping issue (9,000 Palestinians to an Israeli soldier – what say YOU, J Woodruff, to that?), he turned on its head. He aimed for the bullseye re our nation’s willful lack of discussion, its HORRENDOUS taboo over criticism of Israel, which sets it apart from all other places on the globe, it seems. (Land of 1st Amendment pride. Ha.) And lack of any attention over the past 6 years whatsoever to resolving it, and he means EVENhandedly. He talked of how the wall cuts into Palestinian’s already shrunk 1967 cut of land, and, of course, the settlements. I always said like rats in a maze. He said to envision a honeycomb or spider web.

Amy G says no major newspapers discussing his book, his controversial book.

I checked to see if Franken, who is loathe to criticize Israel, would give him an invite, and he did yesterday. He even shut up and let Jimmy talk. Randi Rhodes, it seems, spent a lot of time on it yesterday – caught tail end of her show, but boyfriend said she was on it a long time. She emphasized that it is DEATH to those in the limelight to discuss it without the pro Israel bias. I long ago saw that she is NOT of the AIPACed mindset on the ME, but even she has been woefully inadequate on this topic. They all are on AAR, as far as I can see, except when Jeanine Garofalo was on the air. Some, those who are not wed to the Israeli-American line, gag themselves only to keep their jobs. Pathetic state of affairs.

Well, Good On YOU, Jimmy Carter. May the space you broke open in our horrendous wall of taboo only widen and allow us to finally break on through… to sanity in our discussions of ME policy and the policies themselves. I only hope.

Carter criticizes Israel for building what he describes as an imprisonment wall through the West Bank. He accuses Israel of strangling the residents of Gaza where the poverty rate has reached 70 percent and where the malnutrition rate mirrors countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. And Carter is critical of Washington’s role. He writes, “The United States is squandering international prestige and goodwill and intensifying global anti-American terrorism by unofficially condoning or abetting the Israeli confiscation and colonization of Palestinian territories.”

Some of the most vocal critics of Carter’s book have been fellow Democrats. Incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, “It is wrong to suggest that the Jewish people would support a government in Israel or anywhere else that institutionalizes ethnically based oppression, and Democrats reject that allegation vigorously.”

John Conyers, the incoming chair of the House Judiciary Committee, urged Carter to change the title of the book, which he described as “offensive and wrong.”

Meanwhile, the nation’s newspapers have largely ignored Jimmy Carter’s book since its publication two weeks ago. The book hasn’t even been mentioned in the news pages of the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Boston Globe or Los Angeles Times.

Today on Democracy Now we are going to hear Jimmy Carter in his own words. On Tuesday night he discussed his book “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid” at an event in Virginia.

Hey

Havent had a chance to even read the site lately, or anything else. My mini mac’s hard drive fucking died on me… after only a year. Im borrowing a computer (boyfriend’s, while he’s out) but it is virtually impossible to use it most of the time because he is on it most of the time – it is his work. And it is very awkward for me, negotiating an entirely different (Windows) set up. Takes me longer, getting to know it…

Aside from the internal Internets stuff I havent had a chance to look at – FDL, Kos topics currently chewed on here – wanted to weigh in with Jimmy Carter.

Bless you, fucking bless you, Jimmy Carter.

I assume everyone here is aware that he is out on solo flight as a Democrat with stature, (virtually any Democrat who holds or has held public office) daring to point the finger at Israeli wrongs in the I/P Conflict, in his book Palestine, Peace Not Appartheid. I dont know how good the book is in terms of overall content and writing, but I know what his main message is and god, is it about time. A refreshing blast of sharp, fresh air, cutting thru that wall of taboo and propaganda.

Today Democracy Now devoted a full segment to a talk he gave at Borders. From it, I see our much vaunted leftists, Pelosi and Conyers, were quick to spin Dem distance from Carter out of the gobs of cotton candy, or artificial spun-sugar love for Israel, that fills the toxic abyss that is our deafening national silence, total lack of meaningful discussion, regarding the I/P CRISIS. Or conflict. Or Israeli-American joint venture in ME colonialism. (Also good segment from a few days ago on the topic, with kudos given to Carter by Ali … Electronic Intifada, and Colombia’s Edward Said Org chair, a professor, name escapes…)

I missed the Larry King interview on CNN on Mon night, but caught Carter interviewed by Woodruff 2 nights ago on News Hour… God, she was smarmy, her mouth actually contorted into a kind of nightmarish grimace-smile, melting into her surgically strained face, as he countered her CW (PRO Israeli govt, dull witted American media) questioning. He never wavered, he delivered. Apartheid, worse than in S Africa, even. Horrendous is the adjective he used to describe the treatment by the Israelis of the Palestinians. The kidnapping issue (9,000 Palestinians to an Israeli soldier – what say YOU, J Woodruff, to that?), he turned on its head. He aimed for the bullseye re our nation’s willful lack of discussion, its HORRENDOUS taboo over criticism of Israel, which sets it apart from all other places on the globe, it seems. (Land of 1st Amendment pride. Ha.) And lack of any attention over the past 6 years whatsoever to resolving it, and he means EVENhandedly. He talked of how the wall cuts into Palestinian’s already shrunk 1967 cut of land, and, of course, the settlements. I always said like rats in a maze. He said to envision a honeycomb or spider web.

Amy G says no major newspapers discussing his book, his controversial book.

I checked to see if Franken, who is loathe to criticize Israel, would give him an invite, and he did yesterday. He even shut up and let Jimmy talk. Randi Rhodes, it seems, spent a lot of time on it yesterday – caught tail end of her show, but boyfriend said she was on it a long time. She emphasized that it is DEATH to those in the limelight to discuss it without the pro Israel bias. I long ago saw that she is NOT of the AIPACed mindset on the ME, but even she has been woefully inadequate on this topic. They all are on AAR, as far as I can see, except when Jeanine Garofalo was on the air. They do it to keep their jobs, those who are sympathetic to the truth getting out. Pathetic state of affairs.

Well, Good On YOU, Jimmy Carter. May the space you broke open in our horrendous wall of taboo only widen and allow us to finally break on through… to sanity in our discussions of ME policy and the policies themselves. I only hope.

Please delete the repeat of my 1st post in the 2nd post. As I said, it is quite frustrating using this computer, and I was so eager to finally post, I forgot to get rid of the repeated text in 2nd posting. Argh!

Jimmy has increasingly been out there. It is my take he is going to open up more. For one thing, I think the Clintons disgust him. I watched his body language at the Clinton Library dedication. Pretty clear. And he says more and more about Clinton and NKorea and Darfur and other things.

AND Jimmy has come a long way on I/P. He had Wolf sweating bullets the other day…. I have the link to the interview on CNN will hunt it up.

Woodruff should get a grip, she owes her career to the rise of Carter, she followed the campaign to DC (she was local GA news) and the rest is history.

Also Jimmy broke with the rules at the convention (that stupid mess in 04) and his speech was not submitted for approval… LOL.

Sorry to hear about the computer! Hope it gets straightened out… is one year under warranty?

One State or Two? Rashid Khalidi & Ali Abunimah on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Here is the other discussion from DN I referenced above.

Sigh… must get off now. He who must use this computer 24/7 is back.

Just wanted to mention how moved and upset I was to hear of the man who committed suicide to protest the war. And it wasnt even noted in the media. In Chicago. As commuters passed, he burned. Self immolation. Video taped by him, message left. Heard it on Free Speech TV today and on Randi. Wow.

Now the “(blank) is bad for Daily Kos” diary category has dropped sharply since the departure of Armando (RIP). Any day now I expect it will be revived with some poor newbie like Big Tent Democrat or another victim being singled out for blame for all the problems of the site.

I note with some amusement that with the promotion of the Humble Kagro almost all the FPgers on Dana’s blog (the most boring centrist blog of them all) also have FP privileges on DK. I’m likewise amused by his appalling taste in women fpagers, something he’s been remarkably consistent about.

I expect that Fox news will admit to a civil war in Iraq before Daily Kos admits that it’s become viciously anti-liberal and centrist and has done so by deliberately purging the blog of the most liberal, voices in much the same way the DLC has purged the Democratic party.

So.

As many parts of the United States recover from a devastating series of hurricanes, we end today's show with an update from one of the hardest-hit communities along the Gulf Coast. Port Arthur, Texas, is a fenceline community with several massive oil refineries that flooded during Hurricane Harvey. Just last week, a fire at the Valero oil refinery in Po […]

Six days after Hurricane Maria slammed into Puerto Rico, 3.4 million U.S. citizens in the territory remain without adequate food, water and fuel. But as the massive crisis became clear over the weekend, President Trump failed to weigh in, instead lashing out at sports players who joined in protest against racial injustice. It took the president five full day […]

Amid increasing concern over chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, a degenerative brain disease linked to repeated blows to the head, a recent study of the brains of 111 deceased NFL players found all but one were found to have CTE. We speak with Dr. Harry Edwards, sociologist, author and sports activist, who says a consequence of CTE that is largely ove […]

North Korea says Trump's dangerous rhetoric is tantamount to a declaration of war. But even if military officials try to act as a restraint on Trump's hostility, Trump isn't bound by the advice he gets from anyone, says Col. Larry Wilkerson

The Alternative for Germany party, which has moved so far right that it includes neo-Nazis, now has a seat at the table. Meanwhile, both the Christian Democrats and the social democrats lost big, explains TRNN's Shir Hever

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Another Republican attempt to dismantle Obamacare collapsed in the U.S. Congress on Tuesday as the party was unable to win enough support from its own senators for a bill to repeal the healthcare reform law.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Students and faculty at Georgetown Law School gathered on Tuesday to protest that U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions was delivering an address about the right of free speech on college campuses to an invitation-only audience without giving critics of the Trump administration an opportunity to ask questions.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) told a congressional committee on Tuesday he did not believe his predecessor Mary Jo White knew of a 2016 cyber breach to the regulator's corporate disclosure system, the exact timing of which could not be known "for sure."

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican political consultant Roger Stone, a longtime ally of President Donald Trump, flatly denied allegations of collusion between the president's associates and Russia during the 2016 U.S. election in a meeting with lawmakers on Tuesday.

Media

from Howl

I'm with you in Rockland
where we wake up electrified out of the coma
by our own souls' airplanes roaring over the
roof they've come to drop angelic bombs the
hospital illuminates itself imaginary walls collapse
O skinny legions run outside O starry
spangled shock of mercy the eternal war is
here O victory forget your underwear we're free
I'm with you in Rockland
in my dreams you walk dripping from a sea-
journey on the highway across America in tears
to the door of my cottage in the Western night

October 7 1955

"a remarkable collection of angelson one stage reading their poetry"
"I think Allen Ginsberg standing up there reading - putting himself on the line - was one of the two bravest things I've ever seen. Remember, it was '55. People had crew cuts, and they looked at you like you were misplaced cannon fodder. The country was being run by Luce publications. It was a dangerous, cold, ugly time, and it was scary. . .
In all our memories no one had been so outspoken in poetry before. We had gone beyond a point of no return. None of us wanted to go back to the grey, chill, militaristic silence, to the intellectual void - to the land without poetry - to the spiritual drabness. We wanted to make it new and we wanted to invent it and the process of it as we went into it. We wanted voice and we wanted vision."
-Michael McClure

Democrats…

Same as goddam fucking forever.
Over and over, in election year after election year, GE and MidTerms both… the Dems start to purr and preen, they stretch luxuriously - at just being TOLD they are going to win [...]
It never fails.
... in February of 2002, looking over the already joyless congressional stragglers willing to be drafted for duty… they barely dreamed, yet, it was even possible (Howard, a different person then, had not arrived to say it could be done)… but one thing was clear, we could not rely on the party to swing it. Could not. You could smell it, they would screw the deal. And I am not talking about Howard and primary issues here. By the end, that was a passing political story. Chuck it on the heap.
[...]
Upshot? The Republicans make it thru. They hold on.